WHERE FRIGHT IS CAUSED BY THE DEFECT. 223 



The cause and effect in each case being the same, the manner 

 and detail are unimportant." 



In a Georgia case, where a horse was frightened by the 

 scraping of the wheels of the cart on street car tracks which, 

 contrary to ordinance, were several inches above the street 

 level, and the horse ran away and injured the plaintifif, it was 

 held that the proximate cause of the injury was the vice of the 

 horse — it being a high-blooded animal and having previously 

 tried to run away.^*^ 



In Illinois, it is the duty of the municipality to remove ob- 

 jects in the street calculated to frighten horses. Where a 

 horse died in the afternoon and, with the knowledge of a 

 policeman, the body lay in the street till the following after- 

 noon, when the plaintiff's horse was frightened by it, the city 

 was held liable.^^^ 



In Indiana the same rule prevails ;^^^ and where a horse 

 was frightened by a hole in a turnpike, the company was held 

 liable, the court saying that the Massachusetts cases "are 

 based entirely upon statutes of that State, which are utterly 

 unlike any of our statutes." ^^* But where horses before en- 

 tering a bridge took fright at planks standing upright on the 

 bridge and threw the plaintiff out, the county was held not 

 liable, as it was responsible only for maintaining bridges so 

 that they might safely be travelled on, and was not required 

 to keep them so that horses might not be frightened at 

 them.^^® And where the duty of repairing highways is im- 

 posed by statute on township trustees, the county is not re- 

 sponsible for their negligence in leaving lumber on highways 

 so as to frighten horses, as such persons are independent 

 public agents and are personally responsible.^^* 



In Kansas, where the plaintiff's horses which he was driv- 



'"" Macon v. Dykes, 103 Ga. 847. "^^ Chicago v. Hoy, 75 111. 530. 



"* Rushville v. Adams, 107 Ind. 475. 



''" Brookville & C. Tump. Co. v. Pumphrey, 59 Ind. 78. 



''■' Fulton Co. Commrs. v. Rickel, 106 Ind. 501. 



'^ Abbett V. Johnson Co. Commrs., 114 Ind. 61. 



